1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of control circuits for controlling electronic equipment. More particularly, this invention relates to a control circuit used for demonstrating electronic audio/video (A/V) entertainment equipment in a retail showroom.
2. Background of the Invention
In displaying and demonstrating electronic equipment for home entertainment systems such as stereo equipment (receivers, amplifiers, tape decks, etc.) and video equipment (video tape recorders, television sets, laser disk players, etc.) difficulties in presenting a high quality demonstration are often encountered by virtue of customers playing with or otherwise changing the settings of the equipment being demonstrated. Thus, when a customer asks a sales representative for a demonstration of a particular set of equipment the sales representative may have difficulty presenting a good quality demonstration. For example, if the demonstration relates to a stereo system, a browsing customer may have previously changed the settings of the stereo receiver to unbalance the various components or reconfigure the source of program material without the knowledge of the sales representative.
As a result, when the sales representative attempts to provide a demonstration to the potential customer, it may appear that the equipment is difficult to operate or otherwise undesirable. In fact, with a proper demonstration the potential customer might have found the same equipment to be quite satisfactory. Therefore, it is advantageous to have a demonstration controller which is easily operated by a sales representative or customer which reliably produces a consistent high quality demonstration of a particular system.
There currently exists demonstration systems in which the customer or sales representative actuates a momentary contact switch which brings the audio level of a particular system to a known level as long as the switch is held in the closed position. However, such a system only provides a partial remedy to the problem since customers who are browsing may still easily unbalance such a system or reconfigure it between demonstrations thus disrupting the quality of the demonstration achieved by activating this switch.